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FROM: S H Broadbent
DATE: 12 November 1992
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VISIT OF SIR JOHN ANSON TO HONG KONG
1.
As agreed, Sir John Anson and Mr Bush (HMT) duly visited Hong Kong in the week beginning 26 October to give advice on public expenditure issues. I spoke to them both in the course of last week. The visit had apparently gone well. HKG fears of a HMT plot had been allayed. They felt that they had made a contribution which left HKG feeling that their money was well spent.
2. They had met the Financial Secretary when they arrived, but thereafter the programme was orchestrated by K Y Yeung. His main preoccupation was with forecasting and controlling the rather large underspends which had recently been emerging in the capital works programmes. The team felt that HKG coordination on this issue could be tightened up in a number of ways, and had left some suggestions for doing this. They had looked at the current constant prices issue, but had concluded that radical changes were probably not needed. They had, as we expected, been rather impressed with the quality of people they met, and commented that they seemed well seized of the various issues under discussion and had obviously thought about them. However, there was no conspicuous interest in pursuing the issues of project appraisal about which HMT (and indeed I) were concerned.
3. Anson and Bush had written some fairly brief notes before they departed, and had left them with HKG to emphasis that they were not Treasury narks - a prudent precaution, I suppose, since Huw Evans had been cross-examining Bush yesterday.
4.
We need, if possible, to find a way of reflecting this general sense of confidence back to the Treasury. We also need to find a way of getting HKG to take a bit more interest in project appraisal. I shall have the opportunity of pursuing both of these issues, with my customary delicacy, when I give K Y Yeung lunch next Thursday.
SH Broadbent
77